*** denis wrote: “An equivalent mathematical form is (2a +b -d) which I find is much easier to calculate eg”
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Well, this easier way was first suggested by Jeff Rubens when we were putting together the article for The Bridge World (Jeff is The Bridge World editor). The way he changed and squeezed the article was amazing. His command on the language is stunning – actually “stunning” is too weak of a word – you simply cannot change A WORD of what he’s writing, you just feel totally helpless :-)

However, on the (2a + b – d) issue I was stubborn as a mule – “No, you cannot do that, period. You leave it as (a+ + (a-d) so people understand what’s going on, they see that you add the length of your 2 longest suits to the difference in length of your longest and shortest suits – this reminds them that (a-d) is actually the SUM of the 3 suit-differences (a- + (b-c) + (c-d)”.

So we decided that he’ll leave the (2a + b – d) as an editorial remark. BUT – most people use this short version of (2a + b – d) in life, actually – turned out Jeff was right again :-)

After awhile though, you just stop counting shape points – when I open the cards and see 5-4-3-1, I know it’s 13, while 4-4-3-2 is 10 etc. You just “know” it the way you know that AKJ is 8, or KQJ is 6 etc. Just a matter of practice.

<p class=MsoNormal>The Offensive Bidding numbers for Zar Points have been
posted to the main Zar Points thread “Zar Points – useful or waste of energy”
while the defensive bidding numbers are in the “Competitive Bidding” thread for
Zar Points.</p>